Here Comes ‘The Judge’ : Lobbyist, 80, Is Dean of Legislative Advocates in Sacramento

When they talk about “The Judge” around here, it is with deference not to his age, which is 80, or to his influence, which is considerable, but to the fact that he has served in these treacherous precincts for 40 years and survived with old-fashioned flair.

Judge James Garibaldi is one of 838 registered lobbyists in this state capital, one of the more than 35,000 who haunt the capitals of the 50 states.

What goes on at the state level is more and more important to corporations, environmental groups and other special interests, as the states take up the slack left by diminished federal involvement. So says the Council of State Governments.

Garibaldi, the dean of California persuaders, makes around $400,000 a year and, from what most people say, has few--if any--enemies.

In a state that keeps a sharp eye on lobbyists, his career offers an insight into one of the least-studied roles in state government, the lobbyists.

Legions in Washington

By comparison, the Washington lobbyist has been studied to the cellular level. There are about 6,600 organizations that maintain some lobbying presence in the nation’s capital and something like 10,000 lobbyists.

California is one of the few states that requires registration, has strict rules on how much a lobbyist can spend and makes every lunch reportable. The limit is $10 per legislator per month.

More than 1,300 organizations are registered as hiring lobbyists in the California state capital. (According to some estimates, they actually number 1,700, triple the force of 10 years ago.) An estimated $144 million was spent on lobbying in 1985, including campaign contributions.

The lobbying interests? Virtually everyone: acupuncturists, motorcyclists, kiwi fruit promoters, nonsmokers, funeral directors, carpet cleaners, ice cream vendors, auctioneers, cotton ginners, gill-netters, golf course operators, billboard owners, talent scouts, loggers, travel agents, crop dusters, gifted children, retarded children, the physically disabled, judges, district attorneys, defense lawyers, tax collectors--and taxpayers.

Even government entities, counties, cities, towns and housing authorities--about 180 of them--pay lobbyists to plead their needs before the state Legislature and spend about $6 million a year to do it.

Which leads Garibaldi to ask what is undemocratic about lobbying.

“Lobbying is not an infant profession, you know,” he says. “They say it’s the second oldest.”

His clients include horse tracks, liquor wholesalers, talent agents, a salt company, a manufacturing corporation, Blue Chip Stamps and the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen. His is a fairly short list, compared to the top 10 lobbying firms. Most of them are long-term accounts.

“And for an honest-to-God fact,” said state Treasurer Jesse Unruh, one-time speaker of the Assembly and once candidate for governor, “I can’t tell you if he has any sworn enemies.”

When Senate Leader Hugh Burns, a crony of Garibaldi since their childhood in Merced, retired after 34 years in the Statehouse, everyone said “Gari” would not survive as a lobbyist without the senator. That was more than seven years ago, and “The Judge” remains one of the five most effective advocates in a consensus reported by the California Journal, a state political magazine. Behind that is a reputation for candor with his clients and lawmakers born of long association.

Garibaldi is a big, patient, thorough and genial man. He is a former rural county judge and was a second baseman at Stanford University. Not much got by him then and not much gets by him now.

He has grown up with many of his clients as the Capitol scene matured and became more sophisticated. When he started representing the highway patrolmen, their office was in a fleabag hotel. Now they have their own building, their own credit union and a widow’s benevolent fund.

‘To Understand Exactly’

Besides the power of persuasion, the heart of a lobbyist’s job remains study and research. When the jobs of court reporters, the stenographers who transcribe the proceedings, were threatened by bills to replace them with tape recorders, the first thing Garibaldi established was how many courts used either method, the comparative costs and the burden on counties that pay the fees.

“Then you would have to analyze what the mechanical equipment could do. Pose the question: ‘What would the machine do on testimony that involved some medical term that was said but not spelled? What if the machine for some reason missed a few words and what would happen if both lawyers and the judge were talking at the same time? What if the window was open and a fire engine went by?’ ”

He summed it up in a brochure for the legislators. “That is the basis of lobbying to me. It is to understand exactly the subject and the problem.”

Lobbyists are often the leading experts in a given field. When it comes to real estate law, Garibaldi says, the top man is the lobbyist for the real estate interests. “He’s got a leg up on anybody else who tries to oppose him.”

Cashing in on the emotional side of an issue also can help. A former associate recalls how Garibaldi, in opposing a bill to legalize dog racing on behalf of his horse-racing clients, allied himself with a lobbyist representing “Pets and Pals.”

Her opposition was on humane grounds, and she handled the press conferences and enlisted public sympathy. Garibaldi stayed behind the scenes, working with the lawmakers.

California makes heavy use of the initiative, a process born of distrust of the Legislature and lobbyists. Because it bypasses the legislative process and takes an issue directly to the voters, the initiative is not exactly a lobbyist’s delight.

Garibaldi applauds initiatives as “the voice of the people” when they set broad policies, but he objects to referendums that get down to great detail.

The people spoke in 1978, and Proposition 13 cut state property taxes and forced cuts in governmental spending.

In 1974, Proposition 9 laid down detailed rules for lobbying, which included the $10 ceiling on entertainment expenditures.

“I can buy a guy a drink for $2.50 and report it (against the $10 allowed each month) and walk right out the door and accept a $10,000 campaign-fund donation from a client of mine. Now what is that lousy $2.50 or $10 for a lunch going to do?”

‘Moose Milk’

Years before Proposition 9, Garibaldi and four other lobbyists began an informal buffet and bar for lunch at a local hotel. It was called “Moose Milk,” the origin of the name long forgotten.

Members of the Legislature were invited. They could drop by for a quick sandwich or they could stay and eat and drink until mid-afternoon.

“It was expensive as hell for us,” Garibaldi says. “Proposition 9 stopped it. Maybe we couldn’t afford it anymore anyway.”

Garibaldi insists, however, that there was no lobbying at Moose Milk. “The legislators got more out of it than we did,” meeting informally with colleagues they might otherwise see only in passing.

Another Proposition 9 rule bothers him. He cannot host a lunch for his clients and legislators even though his clients pick up the bill. “But if my clients, all on their own, take the legislators out, pick the place, pay for it, that’s perfectly all right. I can be there. I just can’t set it up. Now that’s ludicrous.”

The record keeping, he says, is so ponderous that a Sacramento lawyer specializes in just handling the reporting procedure for lobbyists.

Complicated Legislation

The Legislature, through its committees, staff and public hearings, can weigh all the ramifications of a bill, Garibaldi said, although it is almost impossible for the public at large to grasp complicated legislation.

That is why initiatives were meant to handle single broad issues, Garibaldi said. Their scope, however, has been greatly enlarged to the point where courts often must define the intent of an initiative, he says.

Garibaldi says it is useless to go to a legislator who is morally or politically opposed to drinking with a question about liquor legislation.

Nor will he ask a legislator to go counter to his constituency. “If you do, you’ve done yourself no service and you’ve done him no service. He’s not going to be able to help you if he’s not there any longer.”

Clients sometimes ask for the moon, and here the established, experienced lobbyist has an advantage over the rookie, because he can tell the client that “this matter’s come up before the Legislature three or four times and your chances are absolutley minimal.”